The Shipyard: Earth Alliance CS-244 "Porcupine" Light Carrier

The Earth-Minbari war left Earthforce, the Earth Alliance military a shadow of its pre-war self. The majority of Earthforce capital ships had been destroyed and orbital infrastructure around human colonies had been destroyed. This left the remaining ships Earthforce possessed overstretched and barely able to keep raiders in check. With the largest assets assigned to protect key worlds and discourage any border incursions, an interim solution was required to deal with the raider problem while Earthforce was built back up.

One of the most effective weapons platforms had been the Mitchell-Hyundyne 23-E Starfury 'Aurora'. Introduced in 2244 just prior to the Earth-Minbari war, the Aurora was a more advanced version of the Mitchell-Hyundyne 23-A Starfury 'Nova' that entered service in 2228 at the same time as the Nova-B Dreadnought. The majority of the 'Nova' Starfurys were lost through attrition during the war and those that survived were withdrawn from front line service shortly after the end of that conflict.

The Narn Regime probes the Earth Alliance border in 2249

As a single seat fighter the starfury is far easier to produce in numbers than the massive Capital ships and production far outstripped the manufacture of the platforms capable of carrying it. Its effectiveness as a platform was constrained by this given its short endurance, so an Interim solution was required. One of the fruits of this was the CAS-320 "Shepherd" Starfury Transport which allowed the non atmospheric starfury's to be based on a planetary surface where an atmosphere was present, and the second solution was the CS-244 "Porcupine" Light Carrier.

The Porcupine was envisioned as a dedicated light carrier capable of operating a full squadron of Starfury fighters in support of the remaining Olympus corvettes, Tethys Cutters and any other small warships the Earth Alliance possessed without having to convert existing hulls to that purpose as had been the case with the Kitty-hawk.
It also had the added limitation of being small enough to be produced in civilian yards, and use, where possible, off the shelf civilian components such as the reactor and propulsion.
The resulting ship proved capable of its primary purpose, being a fighter carrier but the small size left it lightly armed and incapable of independent operations requiring it to operate in company with other ships. Since this was the role it was envisioned to fulfill, this was seen as being acceptable.

As Earthforce recovered from the war and more front line ships entered service, the Porcupine was withdrawn from front line service and by 2258 was fulfilling the role of a Starfury transport and light tender shuttling fighters to and from front line deployments as necessary.

It can still be found in operations that do not warrant the deployment of an Omega-class destroyer in its originally intended role as a light carrier.

A Porcupine escorts the EAS Bayonet

The Rules

The Porcupine is one of the ships that appears in the Earthforce source book for the Babylon project by Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment Inc. In that publication the ship is capable of carrying a single flight of fighters and is essentially a non atmospheric version of the Shepherd. There was a play test version of the porcupine for Babylon 5 wars and both it, and the Shepherd carried a full squadron of fighters.
The STL by Tyrel Lohr is modeled with 12 fighters meaning that none of the versions agree with each other.

The Chameleon Eclectic version

Given the STL has 12 fighters representing 2 flights, that is the version I will be basing my version on.
This causes something of a problem. Several raves have light carriers such as the Barkiri Brikorta or Centauri Amar carry 4 flights but are skirmish choices. Obviously this would mean that the ship would have to be a skirmish choice with some fighters and lots of guns, or a patrol choice with no guns. A patrol choice makes more sense, but that massively limits exactly what the ship can do. Being able to bring an initiative sink to the table as well as fighters is already a massive advantage.

I decided to give it the same base hull characteristics as the Hermes and Shepherd, some weapons for self defense although i doubt they would do much, and give it some fairly superior defensive capability in the form of Interceptors and Anti-fighter. The ship can defend itself against light fire, but it won't be able to threaten any enemies, its sole job is to bring its fighters to the field. Arguably it would be better to bring something else rather than The Porcupine but that said, it could be interesting in smaller games. The main offensive output is the fighters, but it doesan't have the volume other races light carriers do.

Let me know what you think?

Would you use this ship in your games? would you change anything?

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thanks for reading, and I will see you next time.

STL by Tyrel Lohr
Painted by me
Based on the Porcupine by Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment Inc